


Left Its Seeds (While I Was Sleeping)

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Thellas Chronicles [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 08:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10612755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: 'Any, any(/any), "I tried, I really did, but I can't go on like this..."'Carson, Kate, and Elizabeth search Evan's room and accidentally trip the alarm on his quarters. Talking and crying ensue.





	

Carson found the pills. It was a small victory. He’d tried to think outside the box, think of a place no one would otherwise search. A box of condoms seemed like the answer - sort of a man’s equivalent to women stashing important things in a box of tampons. By all accounts, Major Lorne wasn’t seeing anyone (and Carson wasn’t surprised, because anyone dating Major Lorne was also perforce dating Thellas), so his having a box of condoms was rather odd.

Best as Carson could tell, the box still had all its contents - plus a little baggie full of pills. They’d been taken out of their wrappers so no one would know what they were, but Carson had had Dr. Kusanagi use her formidable hacking skills to get into the medical supply database and find out just what Major Lorne had been planning on using to commit suicide. Barbiturates.

“I’ve got them.” Carson held up the bag.

Elizabeth looked up from where she was poking tentatively through Major Lorne’s clothes.

Kate had been going through his art supplies.

Both women looked disappointed.

“Not an idle threat, then.” Kate pressed her lips into a thin line. “How many?”

“Enough to do the job twice over,” Carson said, recalling what he could of Major Lorne’s vital statistics. There were enough pills in the bag to kill _Ronon_ twice over, and Ronon was much bigger than Lorne.

“What now?” Elizabeth asked.

“I’ll need to speak to him,” Kate said.

Carson knew the basics of suicide prevention protocol, but it had been years since his psych rotation as a med student, and he was sure the protocols had changed and improved, and besides, the psychology he’d studied hadn’t involved people who were sharing their bodies with alien symbiotes.

“Alone?” Elizabeth asked.

“If he’d like a support person, that’s up to him,” Kate said. “But I would have patient-therapist confidentiality. The only person who could waive that is him.”

Elizabeth nodded, tapped her radio. “Want me to have him report to your office, or would you like to speak to him here?”

Carson’s radio came to life. Judging by the looks on Elizabeth and Kate’s faces, they were receiving transmission as well.

“Houston, we have a problem,” Rodney said. “Teldy tried to distract Evan, but it didn’t last long. Zelenka and I tried in the lab with Thellas, but I think he knows we’re on to him. He left the lab in a hurry.”

Elizabeth pressed her lips into a thin line. Then she said, “Rodney, does Major Lorne have any enhanced security on his quarters?”

There were things strong natural gene carriers could do on Atlantis that others couldn’t. Carson had discovered the alarm on his quarters in his first week but never bothered with it - sometimes he sent people to his quarters to fetch things, like textbooks or other reference materials. He had set an alarm on the room where narcotics were kept, though. So far, no one had tripped it.

“What do you mean?” Rodney asked.

Carson spoke up. “Strong gene carriers can activate bedroom alarms. Did we set off Major Lorne’s?”

There was a pause, and Rodney’s voice went muffled, and then he said. “Yes. Yes you did. Get out of there now -”

The doors hissed open, but there was no one in the corridor outside.

Carson frowned.

And then Major Lorne said, “Come out with your hands up!”

“Major,” Elizabeth said, and Lorne peeked around the door frame.

He lowered his pistol, holstered it at his thigh, and straightened up. “Ma’am, is everything all right? Usually only Colonel Sheppard does quarters inspections.” He eyed her and Kate and Carson. “I trust my quarters are up to standard.”

“We’re not here on a room inspection,” Kate said gently.

Lorne looked confused. “Then what’s going on? I don’t have any contraband.”

Carson showed him the plastic baggie.

The color drained from Lorne’s face. He swallowed hard. “It’s not what you think. I don’t have a drug problem. And I’m not selling them. I just - sometimes it’s hard to sleep.”

“Aye,” Carson said, “I know you’re not an addict.”

“I know you’re not a drug dealer,” Elizabeth added.

Kate pushed past Carson. “Major, we need to talk.”

“About what? I’m not doing anything wrong.”’

Kate said, “About your plans to take your own life.”

Carson waited for denial, for anger, for pride, for something. Instead Lorne’s expression was defeated.

He swiped a hand over his face. “I tried, I really did, but I can’t go on like this.”

Kate slid closer to him. “Like what, Evan?”

Carson edged toward the door. “Elizabeth and I can give you some privacy.”

Lorne sank down on the edge of his bed. “What’s the point? Everyone knows, right? That’s why Teldy summoned me halfway across the city with some lame story about turning some of the uninhabitable rooms into new storage rooms, isn’t it? And why McKay suddenly decided there was some merit into turning Tok’ra crystals into bomb shelters.”

“Not everyone,” Elizabeth said. “Just certain members of senior command.”

“Thellas told you. When I was asleep.” Lorne looked frustrated and tired, but not angry. “I should have known.”

Elizabeth hesitated.

Kate sat down on the edge of the bed so she could look Lorne in the eye, but she stayed out of his personal space.

Carson understood, theoretically, how the chemical balance in someone’s brain could become so disrupted that death seemed like the only solution. He’d been fortunate enough that no one he’d ever known had committed suicide. Given the terror he experienced on a regular basis from the Wraith, how hard everyone fought to survive, he couldn’t comprehend how anyone on Atlantis, especially a soldier like Lorne, could choose death.

“Are you angry at Thellas?” Kate asked.

Lorne shook his head. “I should’ve known she would figure it out. Privacy in here isn’t what people think. I know Cadman and Rodney couldn’t feel each other’s emotions or read each other’s thoughts, but what they went through wasn’t the same. They were both human. And it was temporary.” Lorne eyed Carson. “What now? You dope me up, send me back to Earth?”

“That depends on you,” Kate said.

Carson knew a lot of people put little stock in psychology and psychiatry, thought that if doctors were charlatans, shrinks were worse. Rodney openly disdained mental health treatment and talk therapy, though he seemed more accepting of medication to manage mental health issues.

Lorne looked surprised and wary. “Depends on me how?”

“That depends on how serious your plans are, and whether you’re willing to commit to a safety plan,” Kate said. “Can you tell me your plans?”

Lorne shrugged. “Sure.” And he began to describe, with frightening exactitude, how he planned to end his own life.

He was going to fast on the last day before his next designated Sunday, so the drugs would be absorbed faster. He’d already pre-filled out all the requisition forms for the next eight weeks, set up some automated email response replies so different departments would send their supply reports to Teldy instead of him; it would be easy for her to make minor adjustments to the requisitions before she sent them out. It would give the SGC time to find someone to replace him. He’d had every intention of behaving perfectly normally on his last day so no one would think to check up on him, then he planned to come back to his quarters, lock them down, put a sheet on the floor, take the pills, and lie down. No one would think to look for him on his designated Sunday - he had no friends, and his hobbies were quite solitary, running and art - and by the time anyone missed him at the start of his next shift, he would be past the point of resuscitation. The sheet would make it easy to bundle up his body for repatriation.

He had two suicide notes, one for his family, one for the Tok’ra, as an apology for taking Thellas with him.

Carson burst out with, “Surely you have friends. I see you out and about all the time at - team movie nights, and in the lab and the like.”

“Thellas has friends,” Lorne said.

Kate said, “May I see the notes?”

Lorne nodded. He stood, crossed the room, and picked a book off his bookshelf. It was the Logistics Officer Handbook and looked like it had been well-used. He rifled through the pages and came up with two folded pieces of paper, handed both of them to Kate.

She read them quietly to herself.

“I don’t understand this reference to your father,” she said.

“He killed himself before I was born. Served in Vietnam. Major PTSD, untreated,” Lorne said. “My mother thinks I don’t know what happened to him, that I don’t know he was a soldier. It was why she was so upset about me joining up. She didn’t want me to end up like him. It’s not like I can tell her about Thellas. This is an explanation she’ll understand.”

Lorne sounded so matter-of-fact about it, like his plan was perfectly logical and reasonable and not utterly cruel to his poor, poor mother. Carson knew better than to try to convince Lorne to stay alive to keep other people happy, but obviously Lorne wasn’t in his right mind, if he planned to give his mother that note.

Elizabeth said, “You’ll be making her worst fears come to fruition, if you follow through with your plan.”

Carson winced.

Kate cleared her throat pointedly.

Lorne said, “I wasn’t supposed to survive that attack. Neither was Thellas. We’re living on borrowed time. Everything that’s happened since then is proof. We never should have done this. It’s not too late to fix our mistake, though.”

“You being alive isn’t a mistake,” Elizabeth protested.

Lorne didn’t meet her gaze.

Kate said, gently, “Thank you for telling me, Evan. Now, it’s my responsibility to keep both you and Thellas safe, so Carson is going to confiscate those meds.”

Carson forced himself to be still under Lorne’s searching gaze.

“Can you tell me a little more, about what made you decide to take your own life?” Kate asked. “Was there some kind of triggering event?”

Lorne shook his head. “No. I just - I haven’t been sleeping well.”

Kate nodded. “Do you know why? Are racing thoughts keeping you up? Is it anxiety?”

“Nightmares.”

“Can you remember what they’re about?”

“I can do you one better. You can see them, if you like.” Lorne went back to his desk, searched, paused. Frowned. “Did one of you move my sketchbook?”

“I searched your art supplies,” Kate admitted, “but I didn’t see any sketchbook. But you’ve been drawing your nightmares? Drawing is a very healthy coping mechanism.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you saw what I was drawing,” Lorne said.

“I didn’t move your sketchbook,” Carson said quickly.

“I have it,” Elizabeth said. “Thellas brought its contents to my attention.”

Lorne went even paler, and he looked afraid. “ _All_ of its contents?”

“Just your dreams, and the letters,” Elizabeth said.

“Letters?” Kate asked.

Had Lorne been drafting his suicide notes in his sketchbook?

Lorne chewed his bottom lip for a moment. Then he shrugged at Kate. “If you want to see them, I guess ask Dr. Weir.”

“Are you upset, that Thellas took your sketchbook without your permission?” Kate asked.

Lorne shrugged, crossed his arms over his chest. “She and I share pretty much everything.”

“I would like to see them, if you don’t mind,” Kate said.

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I? It’s either you, or Beckett dopes me up and throws me onto the _Daedalus_ and sends me back to Earth.”

Carson bit back another protest. He’d never be so callous with a patient, but right now Lorne was upset.

“You always have a choice,” Kate said. “I hope you would choose to live. Can you tell me more about the nightmares?”

“They’re - bad. Torture. Death. Killing. Killing people. _Me_ killing people.”

“You killing people, or Thellas?” Kate asked.

“Same difference.”

Kate shook her head. “No, it’s not.”

Lorne shrugged again, his shoulders tight. “I’m a soldier, she’s been at war for centuries. We’ve both done more than our fair share of killing.”

“But the nightmares bother you,” Kate said.

Carson glanced at Elizabeth. She was pale and worried, looked torn between wrapping Lorne in a blanket and bundling him to safety and shaking him and demanding what was wrong with him.

“‘Bother’ is an understatement,” Lorne muttered.

“I can help you with the nightmares,” Kate said. “Will you let me?”

Lorne buried his face in his hands for a long moment, heaved a sigh. Then he peered through his fingers at her “Can you help me sleep? Peacefully?”

Kate glanced at Carson.

“I can offer you a mild sedative,” he said. Certainly not any barbiturates. “That will help for tonight. Working with Dr. Heightmeyer will offer long-term relief.” Nightmares were probably just the tip of the iceberg if Lorne had been ready to kill himself.

“Does anything in particular trigger the nightmares, that you know of?” Kate asked. “Sometimes heavy foods or eating late lead to uneasy sleep.”

“I sleep all the time, when Thellas is in control,” Lorne said. “I just - sometimes if someone surprises me, or when Zelenka’s using a particular pair of pliers, or certain burn smells, the nightmares hit. It could be anything. I never know what it’s going to be. Half the time Thellas is in the driver’s seat when it happens.”

Kate considered for a long moment. “How about from now on you and Thellas normalize your schedule a little bit? Both be awake at the same time, asleep at the same time. That way Thellas isn’t taking in sensory data that’s affecting you while you sleep. Is that agreeable, Thellas?”

“Yes, Dr. Heightmeyer.”

Carson started violently. The voice that had just come tumbling out of Lorne’s mouth wasn’t his own, wasn’t even human, was deep and reverberating and sounded like a dozen voices at once.

“What about you, Evan?” Kate looked completely unfazed.

“Sure, Doc.” Lorne’s voice was back to normal. He dragged a hand through his hair, disheveling it.

“Is there anything you do, that helps you calm down when you’re stressed out?” Kate asked. “That you can do when you feel yourself becoming depressed, thinking of taking your own life.”

Here it came, the safety plan. Carson remembered this part. He’d only ever had to help create one once, and it had been in a roleplaying situation with other med students.

“I draw,” Lorne said.

Kate nodded encouragingly. “That’s good. Anything else?”

“Go for a run, I guess.”

“Running and exercise in general are also healthy coping skills,” Kate said. She smiled. “It sounds like you have a lot of coping skills, but what you’re going through is very difficult, and maybe you could use a few more skills and some additional support. I’ll be here every step of the way to help you through that. Is there anyone else who you feel would be supportive, someone besides me you can talk to when you feel stressed out or upset?”

Lorne thought for a long moment, shook his head.

Kate’s gaze darkened, but she maintained her reassuring smile. “Well, why don’t you see if you can’t think of someone you’d like on your support team, and I’ll talk to Thellas.”

Lorne nodded, and Carson saw it, the flare of gold in his eyes before he spoke in that uncanny voice again.

“Hello, Doctors.”

“Please, call me Kate. How are you doing, Thellas?”

“I am quite distressed. I did not realize Evan was so upset until I happened to look through his sketchbook. He gave no sign, no indication that he was so dissatisfied with our blending. I have always maintained strong bonds with my host, and I thought Evan and I could be honest with each other.”

It was unsettling. Thellas’s voice was deeper than Evan’s, and she had different speech patterns, and she was - still. She sat perfectly upright, hands folded on her lap, and Carson had never noticed it before, didn’t spend much time around her _or_ Lorne, but there was something distinctively feminine about how she held herself.

“I do not know if Evan wishes to harm me, if he blames me for his unhappiness, or if he is so unhappy that he cannot see hope in anything, not for me or for him.” Thellas stared down at her hands. “He has such a detailed plan. I would not have known. I would have gone to sleep and never woken up -” Thellas buried her face in her hands and started to cry.

Kate reached out and pulled Thellas into a hug.

Elizabeth pressed her lips into a thin line.

Before Atlantis, Carson was a geneticist. His patients, as a rule, were distant, subjects with numbers and samples and slides, but he rarely saw their faces or interacted with them. He was a research scientist, not a GP or a surgeon. On Atlantis, Carson was thrown into the deep end as a trauma surgeon. He went from never seeing people to seeing them at their worst, men and women injured and dying and crying out for their mothers. He saw people crying over their fallen friends and comrades. He’d thought it would get easier, over time, to keep that stiff upper lip.

But seeing Thellas, crying like this, looking so small in Kate’s arms, made him have to bite down on the inside of his cheek so he didn’t start crying too, because that really wouldn’t have helped the situation.

Kate rocked Thellas gently, patting her back and making soothing noises. Carson had the sense to look for a box of tissues and hand it over to Kate.

Thellas sat back and thanked Kate softly for the tissue, dabbed her eyes and blew her nose very delicately. Carson had seen Laura in Rodney’s body, and that had been disturbing enough, but Thellas was _alien_ , and not in the way Teyla and Ronon were aliens by mere fact of having been born on another planet, and when she was in control of Lorne’s body, she was a whole other person.

Of course, Carson had never known Thellas in any of her previous hosts, so he didn’t know what she was like as herself, unlike Laura.

“It’s my responsibility to keep both of you safe,” Kate said, patting Thellas’s shoulder. “And if you want to stay safe, you have to work together. Are you willing to submit to a safety plan?”

Thellas nodded. “Anything. For me, and for Evan.”

The plan was quite simple - therapy three times a week, individual sessions for Thellas and Lorne and then one group session with the both of them; regular sleeping, eating, and running, so no more all-nighters with only one of them awake; regular check-ins with a supportive friend; art and more running when he felt especially upset; and if either Thellas or Lorne felt like those weren’t helping, they would call Kate.

Carson bit back a snarky comment when Thellas chose Rodney, because Carson would not consider Rodney very good emotional support for, well, anything. But by Thellas’s account, she and Rodney were very good friends, and Rodney cared about her very much. Given that they worked on side-projects together in the lab, it would not be inconvenient for him to spend additional time with her.

As Lorne had basically done eight weeks of logistics work in advance, it was settled - after Kate consulted with Teldy and John via radio - that Lorne could do half a day in his office, and Thellas could then spend half a day in the lab with Rodney. That way, both of them would have equal time in control of the body (Lorne’s body) but also maintain regular sleep.

Rodney agreed, also via radio, to be Thellas’s check-in buddy.

“What about you, Evan? Have you thought of anyone who you’d like as a support person?” Kate asked.

“I could check on you,” Elizabeth offered.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Lorne said quietly, not meeting her gaze. “You’re very busy as it is, ma’am. Maybe, um, Ronon? He goes running, and I think he likes art. He doodles, sometimes, in the margins of his reports. He’s pretty good.”

Carson knew Ronon was a formidable soldier, but he was a man of few words, and he didn’t seem like the kind of person much inclined toward sympathy for emotional distress.

Kate radioed him, and he agreed to spend some extra time with Lorne, was unaware that Lorne was an artist, and he expressed some interest in taking up art again, now that he was no longer a Runner.

Elizabeth listened to that radio exchange in silence, her expression unreadable.

“Sounds like we have a plan,” Kate said. “Why don’t we write it up, and have all the responsible parties sign it, and then make sure everyone has copies, and we can adjust as you progress in treatment, all right?”

Lorne nodded. He rose up and went to his desk, found a notebook and a pen, and began to write, speaking aloud, making sure he was wording it properly. He paused midway to scrub his face with his wrist, wiping away what was left of Thellas’s tears. Once everyone was satisfied the written plan reflected what they’d agreed to, Lorne tore it out of the notebook and signed it.

Carson stared, awed, as Lorne then switched the pen to his left hand and Thellas took over, writing her own name. Kate signed, and she said she’d take it to Rodney and Ronon to sign, and then distribute signed copies.

“If you come with me, Major,” Carson said, “I can get you something to help you sleep tonight.”

Lorne nodded, and Carson led him out of the room. Kate and Elizabeth drifted behind, peeled away to go to Elizabeth’s office and fetch Lorne’s sketchbook.

Lorne was very pliant in the infirmary, answered Carson’s questions, submitted to a brief physical, and didn’t squirm when Carson watched him take his meds. He just thanked Carson quietly and said he’d go back to his quarters and settle down to sleep.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Carson went to stash the sleeping pills in his narcotics cabinet. He radioed for John.

“What’s up, Doc?” John drawled.

“Atlantis like you more than me,” Carson said. “I need your help setting extra security on one of the rooms in the infirmary.”

“Sure. Be right there. Which room?”

“Where I store the controlled substances,” Carson said. “I confiscated the sleeping pills Major Lorne was hoarding. They could be useful for someone else.”

John sighed. “Right. C’mon, Rodney, walk with me.”

Carson heard Rodney’s voice muffled in the background.

A few minutes later, both Rodney and John strode into the infirmary.

“Is Thellas all right?” Rodney asked.

“Aye, physically she’s fine. Beyond that - you’ll have to ask her,” Carson said.

“What kind of security do you want where?” John asked.

Carson showed him which room, and he and Rodney crowded around the door control panel, Rodney with screwdrivers, John waving one hand over the crystals. They were setting it so Carson could think the door open if he was in the infirmary, or remotely activate the door from a computer terminal or laptop when he was elsewhere in the city, and only grant permission to one other person to access the meds when he wasn’t on shift to prevent theft or misuse.

Rodney was having Carson experiment with thinking the room open from across the infirmary when Kate, Elizabeth, Teldy, and Ronon arrived. Rodney and Ronon signed the safety plan.

Carson stared at Lorne’s perfectly neat print and organized bullet points and wondered if Lorne’s suicide plan had been just as neat and organized.

“I checked the database,” Teldy said. “He really did do eight weeks’ worth of requisitions in advance. He was serious.”

John’s expression turned grim.

“He’s still in serious condition,” Kate cautioned her.

“I’m glad Thellas told me,” Rodney said.

“Yes, thank you,” Elizabeth said, “for bringing her concerns to my attention.”

Ronon’s signature was an unreadable scrawl. It probably wasn’t even in English.

Kate eyed him warily. “You understand what we’re asking you to do, right?”

Ronon shrugged. “Hang out with Lorne.”

“And make sure he’s okay,” Kate said. “If you have any concerns, if you think he might be planning to take his own life again, you have to let us know.”

Ronon nodded.

“Any questions?” Kate asked.

Neither Rodney nor Ronon had questions. Ronon wandered away, and Rodney asked Carson to head to ops and borrow a computer there and see if he could unlock the med storage room remotely.

Carson nodded, said he wanted to swing by Lorne’s quarters and make sure he was sleeping. Elizabeth and Kate would accompany him, so they could return his sketchbook now that the relevant pages had been scanned and added to Kate’s file for Lorne.

Once they were out of Rodney and John’s earshot, Kate asked, “Is there something wrong between you and Evan?”

“Me?” Carson asked, affronted. He’d never been impolite to Lorne, not once.

“No, Elizabeth. Your offer to be his support was very generous, and -”

“No,” Elizabeth said. “Just - read the letters he wrote. You’ll understand.”

Kate studied her for a moment, but she said nothing. When they got to Lorne’s quarters, Carson managed to get the door to open quietly, and then they placed his sketchbook back on his desk.

Lorne was in bed, tossing and turning, the covers twisted around his hips.

Kate frowned.

“I can’t give him anything stronger,” Carson whispered.

Kate nodded, and they retreated from the room, headed back to the transporter to go to Ops. Once they reached Ops, Kate and Elizabeth sequestered themselves in Elizabeth’s office for further discussions, most likely of Lorne.

Carson went to Chuck and Amelia’s station to ask to borrow one of their laptops, and as he worked, he wondered how anyone, anyone at all, survived as a Tok’ra.

**Author's Note:**

> This story would not have been possible without generous assistance from my friend Liz, who is a psych major in grad school. 
> 
> Title from The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.


End file.
